This course tracks uses of the body as a metaphor in literature by black writers in the 20th and 21st centuries. Thinking about the body as a conceptual unit that refers to a broad range of configurations -- the physical body, the national body, bodies of knowledge, and so on -- this course will ask students to think about the limits and potentials of the body as form when it is marshaled by black writers toward a range of political, social, and aesthetic projects. We will read texts by Frantz Fanon, James Hannaham, Jesmyn Ward, Octavia Butler, Jamaica Kincaid, and others.

This course turns to contemporary Latinx and Latin American poetry as a vital creative resource. Reading work by Cecilia Vicuña, Jenif(f)er Tamayo, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Davi Kopenawa, and Miriam Alves, among others, students will write poetry and other genres in dialogue with voices from across the Americas. To orient our imaginations, we will explore not just the innovative forms and aesthetics taken up by poets of Latin American descent but also the politics embedded therein.

Spatial representation onstage centers the discourse in which plays, contemporary surveying manuals, sermons, and conduct books orbit. We will read plays and put them in context with ideas about space and setting that intersect with contemporary ideas like assemblages, taskscapes, and the formation of cultural geography. This may beget questions like: how do dramatic representations of space shape ideological expressions of politics, race, and economics? How might we trace the historical imprint upon contemporary performances or readings?

Spatial representation onstage centers the discourse in which plays, contemporary surveying manuals, sermons, and conduct books orbit. We will read plays and put them in context with ideas about space and setting that intersect with contemporary ideas like assemblages, taskscapes, and the formation of cultural geography. This may beget questions like: how do dramatic representations of space shape ideological expressions of politics, race, and economics? How might we trace the historical imprint upon contemporary performances or readings?

What can literature and popular culture teach us about the construction of whiteness and the United States' history of white supremacy? How can literary analysis be used to examine, confront, and contest whiteness's social and political power? This seminar will critically analyze literary and cultural texts that emphasize whiteness's visibility, and that challenge whiteness as the presumed default in U.S. culture. Authors may include Dorothy Allison, Chang-rae Lee, Toni Morrison, Claudia Rankine, and Philip Roth, as well as select contemporary films and television episodes.

The course is designed for students interested in learning about qualitative research on environmental issues. We will discuss the logic of qualitative social research and examine a range of methods, considering the specific advantages and limitations of different techniques. Students will also discuss ethical issues, including the challenges of conducting research in cross-cultural settings, reflect on our own underlying assumptions, motivations and values in research, and consider what it means to decolonize methodologies.

This course is an interdisciplinary advanced seminar for students interested in learning about global environmental governance and inequality. We review the major theories about the intertwined challenges of poverty and environmental degradation, explore how legacies of colonialism persist, and examine how actors from nation states to Indigenous Peoples influence official state negotiations.

Water is essential for life. Human health, both morbidity and mortality, is directly impacted by the scarcity of water and accessibility of safe drinking water. Amidst a changing climate, population pressures on finite water supplies continue to increase. This course will focus on the human health implications and challenges of water access, water scarcity, and water quality in different parts of the world. We will also discuss the disproportionate burden of water-related disease on children which impacts their long-term physical and cognitive development.

From protesting pipelines in Standing Rock to fighting fires in Brazil, Indigenous peoples have been at the forefront of environmental struggles. But how do Indigenous peoples characterize relationships with land/territories? How do Indigenous and other marginalized groups contest colonialism when engaging with their territories, and in politics? What alternative worlds do they imagine? This course will seek to answer these questions in connection to theories, concepts, and cases focused on the Americas/Abya-Yala.

This course will focus on the demonstration of scenic painting techniques based on traditional methods and innovative problem-solving. Projects will be introduced with a demonstration; the remainder of class periods are intended for work on assigned projects. Come to class prepared to work and dressed appropriately in attire that can be discarded after the course (footwear included).